Associations between the autumn Arctic sea ice concentrations (SICs) and North American winter precipitation were examined using singular value decomposition. The results show that a reduced SIC in the majority of the Arctic is accompanied by dry conditions over the Great Plains, the southern United States, Mexico, eastern Alaska, and southeastern Greenland, and by wet conditions over the majority of Canada, the northeastern United States, and the majority of Greenland. Atmospheric circulation anomalies associated with the SIC variability show a wave train structure that is persistent from autumn to winter and is responsible for the covariability between the autumn Arctic SICs and North American winter precipitation. This relationship suggests a potential long-term outlook for the North American winter precipitation.
SONG Mi-RongLIU Ji-PingLIU Hai-LongREN Xiao-BoWANG Xiu-Cheng
Observational analyses have demonstrated that the Hadley circulation has expanded poleward in recent decades. Important issues are what caused the widening of the Hadley circulation and whether the observed widening is related to anthropogenic forcing. In the present study, we use currently available simulations of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase-5 （CMIP5） to analyze changes in the width of the Hadley circulation. It is found that CMIP5 historical simulations with greenhouse gas （GHG） forcing generate a total widening of ,-0.15°±0.06°in latitude （10 yr）-1 for the period 1979-2005, and the widening in CMIP5 historical simulations with all forcings is -0.17°± 0.06° per decade. Similar to that in CMIP3, the simulated poleward expansion in CMIP5 is much weaker than the observational reanalyses. In CMIP5 projection simulations for the 21st century, magnitudes of widening of the Hadley circulation increase with radiative forcing. For the extreme projected radiative forcing of RCP8.5, the total annual-mean widening of the Hadley circulation is -0.27°±0.04° （10 yr）-1 in the 21st century. Although CMIP5 underestimates observed poleward expansion of the Hadley circulation, the results of this study suggest that the observed trends in the width of the Hadley circulation are caused by anthropogenic forcing and that increasing GHGs play an important role in the observed poleward expansion of the Hadley circulation, in addition to other foreings emphasized in previous studies.
Recent satellite data analysis has provided improved data sets relevant to the surface energy budget in the Arctic Ocean. In this paper, surface radiation properties in the Arctic Ocean obtained from the Surface Radiation Budget（SRB3.0） and the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project（ISCCP-FD） during 1984– 2007 are analyzed and compared. Our analysis suggests that these datasets show encouraging agreement in basin-wide averaged seasonal cycle and spatial distribution of surface albedo; net surface shortwave and all-wave radiative fluxes; and shortwave, longwave, and all-wave cloud radiative forcings. However, a systematic large discrepancy is detected for the net surface longwave radiative flux between the two data sets at a magnitude of ~ 23 W m–2, which is primarily attributed to significant differences in surface temperature, particularly from April to June. Moreover, the largest difference in surface shortwave and all-wave cloud radiative forcings between the two data sets is apparent in early June at a magnitude of 30 W m–2.
